There is no argument to Smart’s comments about working hard, that’s obvious, and he even makes quite a passionate articulation about the amount of work that goes into crafting a play:

Writing a play, revising it, really working on it, staying open to the good and bad criticism, really reworking it, getting it out there, seeing it through to production, dealing with poor casting, weathering pans or rave reviews, reworking it, getting it done again, reworking it, repeat for the next script, repeat— all this is an act of love. It has to be. In the end, our approach to our own work is the only thing we can control—and I believe that you have to love the doing.

But his assessments about talent and quality of work being the reasons grants, fellowships, and productions are awarded are so infuriating to me as a poor, queer playwright wearing the label of “emerging”, I almost have to laugh to be sure the article is real.

Smart’s opinions are so blatantly the product of privilege, they’re flowing from the citadel of straight, white men like condescending laughter. I have the same reaction to his opinions I have to members of the radical Tea Party. You mean people actually feel this way?

Regardless of his thinly veiled attempt to avoid peer shrapnel by using “we” to somehow incorporate himself into the “failed emerging playwright” he’s assaulting in his condescension and really has no understanding (or apparently desire to try) in the difficulties of being a minority playwright – whether that be racially, sexually, or other- in today’s theatrical climate.

Smart says (quite reductively) that emerging playwrights need to be more talented to get produced. And who’s judging the talent? Straight. White. Linear. Men.

I think it’s appropriate Smart at one point, addresses “Mr. Artistic Director”. With the current state of American theatre, Mr. Artistic Director, like Smart himself, is probably a straight, white, male with a penchant for linear, Aristotelian structure. With this demographic making up the majority of deciding bodies for fellowships, awards, and production seasons it’s no wonder Mat Smart doesn’t see a broken system.